"Romance and Cigarettes"; "Margot at the Wedding"

Before Kate Winslet portayed a discontent, mercurial, suburban housewife in "Revolutionary Road" or an illiterate, Nazi prison guard in "The Reader" (of course, I'm simplifying), she was a foul-mouthed, red-headed temptress with an Irish brogue in John Turturro's New York musical, "Romance and Cigarettes" (2007). Boy, she's got more range than a gas stove. Which is why that Oscar she bagged on Sunday is well deserved. She's joined in "Romance and Cigarettes" by James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Walken, Aida Turturro (Janice Soprano), Mandy Moore, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Buscemi and Amy Sedaris.

Though I don't always agree with critic par excellence, Roger Ebert (whose association with Richard Roeper should be annulled, abolished, voided, undone, discontinued), he is quite right about Romance.

image filched from filmbrain.com

"John Turturro's 'Romance & Cigarettes' is the real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions and an anarchic liberty. The actors toss their heads and run their mouths like prisoners let loose to race free."


It is a delightful movie, much as "Margot at the Wedding" turned out to be (in its own nutty way).

"Margot at the Wedding," which features John Turturro as the eponymous character's estranged husband, is the third feature-length film directed by Noah Baumbach ("Kicking and Screaming"). I thought his previous film, "The Squid and the Whale," came off as little more than a movie about four people with their heads up their asses. There was something very pathetic and mean about the characters in the film that I couldn't stomach...to put it mildly. Naturally, this made me hesitant to watch "Margot", but my misgivings were allayed by Jack Black's comedic role in the movie and the absurdity of certain character details conveyed through well-written dialogue.

It may be a bit sadistic, but this film succeeds in making us laugh at characters who place themselves in uncomfortable situations. Their distress is amusing to us precisely because they are incapable of the self-awareness that would allow them insight into the absurdity of their actions. However, we as viewers have this privilege. The nonsequitur which Margot (Nicole Kidman) relates (apropros of nothing) at a talk about an incident with a retarded, Puerto Rican, Frigidaire repairman as a way of deflecting a question by the interviewer (whom she's also having an affair with) is funny in part because it is the first time we see her squirm. There is a certain Allenesque quality to Baumbach's work. Or maybe what he displays isn't anything as specific as a Woody Allen influence at all, but the dysfunctions of New York intellectuals--denizens of a city with more shrinks per square foot than any other city in America, except Los Angeles, maybe.